Seminar “From Souss to Sofala, on foot. Global histories of medieval Africa” – 2 June 2026

The Wits History Workshop and IFAS-Research are pleased to invite you to a seminar by Dr Adrien Delmas (Sciences Po Paris), titled “From Souss to Sofala, on foot. Global histories of medieval Africa“, on Tuesday, 2 June 2026, at the Wits History Workshop (RS207, 2nd floor, Robert Sobukwe block, East Campus, Wits University). The event is free and open to all.

Abstract:

Drawing on the history of the two Portuguese fortresses built in 1505 in the Souss and at Sofala, this essay explores the possibility of a shared medieval history between the opposite ends of the African continent. After reviewing the global history frameworks commonly applied to medieval Africa—namely the “first globalization” of the sixteenth century, on the one hand, and the “Global Middle Ages” between the tenth and fifteenth centuries, on the other—it advances the hypothesis of a third form of African globalization, internal to the continent and discernible through the archaeological model of the route. These “fossil routes”, and the regimes of mobility they underpinned, have indeed left traces not only in the medieval archaeological contexts of Southeast and Northwest Africa, but also in contemporary texts, notably the Sufālīya of Ahmad ibn Mājid.

Adrien Delmas is a specialist in the medieval and early modern history of Southern Africa. Among his publications are Written Culture in Colonial Context (Brill, 2012), Les voyages de l’écrit. Culture écrite et expansion européenne à l’époque moderne (Honoré Champion, 2013), Towards a History of Archaeology from South Africa (SAAB, 2019), and Cuba & Africa, 1959–1994 (Wits University Press, 2021). He served as Director of IFAS-Research from 2012 to 2016 and of the Centre Jacques Berque in Rabat from 2018 to 2022. He is presently Vice-Dean of the Undergraduate College at Sciences Po, Paris.